


Con Amore

by museicalitea



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: First Dance, Gen, M/M, Wedding Planning, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:54:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23358856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/museicalitea/pseuds/museicalitea
Summary: In which Otabek and Yuri get some assistance to prepare for their first dance—Or, rather, their first pair skate as husbands, because first dances are overrated anyway (according to Yuri).
Relationships: Otabek Altin & Leo de la Iglesia, Otabek Altin/Yuri Plisetsky
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22
Collections: Valentine's Day Lockers 2020





	Con Amore

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Agape (kitsuneart)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitsuneart/gifts).



> Happy Valentine's Agape!! This is just a little fic as a treat and to say thank you for all the beautiful art you create - I really appreciate how much you share with us all and it always makes me so happy to see the characters you love come to life under your hands. Hope you have a beautiful year ahead!

Some aspects of planning a wedding are easier than others, is what Otabek finds in the nine months between Yuri proposing off-hand in bed and the date they set in September. The food is the easiest: Yuri likes what he likes, and Otabek likes what Yuri likes so long as there is a pork-free alternative. Otabek won’t tell anyone, but he’s been quietly curating a dream wedding songs playlist for the last eighteen months, intent on proposing himself if Yuri hadn’t beaten him to it, and so their music selection is a breeze.

Trickier are things like trying to reconcile the differences between traditional Muslim weddings and the wedding vision Yuri has in mind, which has zero religious aspects whatsoever included. 

And then, unexpectedly, both hardest and easiest of all is figuring out what to do for their first dance.

Yuri’s insisted that he doesn’t want their first dance to be a  _ dance, _ like an actual dance, because it’s  _ boring _ and  _ unsurprising _ and he wants their wedding to be more epic than that. Otabek, curled up on the couch with Potya purring in his lap, Leopard Basilisk Rattlesnake asleep on his feet, and Alya (whom Yuri still insists on calling Serval Mountain Lion Alligator) kneading her paws into his thigh, raises his eyebrows at him.

“What did you have in mind, then?”

Yuri shrugs from his spot on the floor with his phone, and shuffles half a step forward. There are some days when the cats collectively decide they like Otabek better, and Yuri is working on tactics to entice even one of them to cuddle with him. Otabek keeps offering to cuddle Yuri in his lap so the cats have no choice but to hang out with them both, but Yuri wants to win the battle against the cats with his own strength, whatever that means. Otabek thinks he’s been reading sports manga again.

“Like… I mean like, a cool pair skate or something. That would be  _ so _ much more fun, Beka!”

And even as his mind shoots out that it’s harder to choreograph and logistically it’s difficult and that they can’t just commission skating outfits on top of all the other wedding costs, Otabek’s first thought is this:

He likes skating so much more than normal dancing, and the pair skate would  _ absolutely _ be more fun than a traditional dance.

In the end, it’s a no-brainer; just another section in the wedding binder he’s been compiling for the last three months. There’s a rink close enough to their wedding venue that they can hire out, and Yuri eventually agrees with Otabek’s suggestion that they do the pair skate for their wedding party and select friends they’ll be having photos with—much as Yuri wants to open up the rink to everyone who could come and watch, Otabek points out that not that many people would willingly come to a rink that smells like feet for someone’s wedding. This is also his argument for not holding the reception at the rink, which had been Yuri’s other suggestion.

The one sticking point is who to get in to choreograph the dance.

Yuri wants to go the whole shebang with lifts and a death spiral alongside at least five jumps apiece, which Otabek is fully in favour of—especially since Yuri is insisting on being the spirallee—but neither he nor Yuri is especially good at dance choreo. Flashy moves are easy; dancing over the ice as a team is not. Yuri refuses point blank to let Victor choreograph—“He’s insufferable enough as it is, Beka, I don’t want to spend two hours a day with him on the ice on top of sorting out the flowers!”—but doesn’t have any other suggestions. For a week, they toss ideas and choreographers back and forth, stuck.

But then Otabek has a stroke of inspiration, follows through, and strikes gold.

To say Leo de la Iglesia is delighted to choreograph an on-ice wedding dance for them would be an understatement. Forty-eight hours after Otabek messages him the details along with a proposed hourly rate for tuition sessions, he finds in his Google Drive not one, but five videos with mockup choreography alongside a bevy of low-cost ice-friendly outfit ideas. Leo doesn’t look like he’s slept when Otabek Facetimes him to talk through things further, but he can’t help but feel grateful as the two of them discuss ideas and narrow down their options.

He knows how lucky he is, to have friends all over the world with so many talents who will help him whenever he needs it.

The dance comes together in the snatches of time they are able to grab together; Leo waking up earlier to get to the rink, Otabek and Yuri staying a little later so they have enough time each session to cement the new choreography and pick up on Leo’s suggestions for how to adjust it to make the whole look seamless and beautiful, a perfect first dance. He evens helps them figure out an off-ice variation to perform for everyone who isn’t coming to the ice rink, one that even Yuri admits is  _ not horrible _ and Otabek finds he can adjust to without his feet tying themselves in knots.

Dancing has always been Otabek’s penance in this sport—he doesn’t have the innate flexibility, nor the born strength. He’s had to build everything from the ground up, chasing everyone else racing ahead of him on the path every other skater takes; and when he broke away from that path, and sought his own, he thought that would be the end of it. Ballet was one way, but not the only way. Somewhere along the line, the ballet morphed itself in his mind to all dancing, all choreography, and it’s hard even now to wrap his head around the idea that dancing might even be fun, when all’s said and done.

Yet somehow, when he’s dancing with Yuri, it’s like none of that matters.

With Yuri’s hand in his, or his hand in the small of Otabek’s back, he feels like he can fly across the ice. When Yuri lifts him and spins, silken like there is pure glass beneath his feet, Otabek closes his eyes and imagines he is in the sky. Up there above Yuri, he is truly weightless.

And even so, there is nothing better than coming down to the weight of the earth grounding him and Yuri’s arms around him, and knowing that this is his forever.

The months creep by almost without warning until there’s just a month to go—then two weeks—and then the final week, where every second he takes to think about the wedding makes it feel forever away, and every time he gets even a little busy five hours pass by in a flash.

At the start of that week, Leo arrives in St Petersburg. Otabek comes out to the airport to meet him, even though Leo had texted ahead to say he was hiring a car for the week. Part of him reasons it can’t hurt to make sure Leo gets his car without any trouble and knows where to go. Most of him just really misses Leo, and cannot wait to see him again.

And there Leo is in the long hall outside arrivals, looking a little tired, his backpack heavy over his shoulders and the old denim jacket he’s had forever—and yet when Otabek waves and their eyes catch, Leo lights up and his face  _ glows _ above his smile.

Leo catches him in a fierce hug, and Otabek melts into his warm embrace. 

“You must be tired,” says Otabek, once they’ve found their way to the rental car place and Leo has stowed his backpack and small suitcase away in the backseat. “We’re happy to have you for dinner if you want, but if you just want to go to your Airbnb and sleep, Yuri will—”

“Beka, my  _ dude.  _ I wanna see that pair skate. ASAP. As soon as you can get me to your rink.”

Otabek stares at him for a long minute, realises that Leo is perfectly serious, and laughs as he pulls out his phone. They’re such different people, but it’s times like these that it strikes him why Yuri and Leo have a two-hundred-and-something day long streak on Snapchat, or why Leo’s always one of the first to comment on Yuri’s photos of his cats wearing off-cuts from his costumes, or why after one Grand Prix event short program, Otabek heard both of them say exactly the same thing to the reporters in two different languages.

He’s really lucky. Not many people have a fiance and a best friend that get on so weirdly well.

Even though Otabek insists they stop by Leo’s accomodation first to drop off his things, they still beat Yuri to the rink by six minutes.

“I thought you said you were getting food first?” says Yuri, aghast, as he comes through the door.

“I can eat it later,” says Leo, already fiddling with the speakers and hooking them up to his phone. “Get stretching, I want to see the magic.”

_ “Hah,” _ says Yuri, like this is a competition. “I already stretched this morning.”

“Your fiance didn’t,” says Leo without even turning around, and Yuri cackles with laughter as Otabek feels his cheeks turn bright red.

“You don’t know that.”

“Yeah, but I know  _ you, _ Beka. Go on, I don’t want you pulling a muscle right before your big day.”

“Beka, we’re gonna have to stretch before we get married.”

“Oh, Allah  _ preserve me,” _ Otabek moans, and Yuri laughs so hard he has to sit down.

But in time Yuri’s laughter dies down, and Leo starts asking about wedding preparations, and Otabek distracts himself from limbering up by listening in. Yuri is quick to go on at length about the things he’s excited for—namely the skating, and the cake—and Otabek can tell how hard Leo’s trying not to smile as Yuri launches into a rant about Victor taking charge of hiring the venues and decorating and how annoyingly excited he’s getting about it all.

Leo plays around with the music volume while Otabek and Yuri get warmed up on the ice, and comes over to the rink wall as Otabek’s marking through his jumps and Yuri’s launching into a quad salchow straight off the bat. He lands it a little short, but with a scowl he just lines himself up and goes for it again; and like he’s in ballet slippers on silk, there’s barely a sound as he lands elegant and perfect like he’s been doing it all his life.

“Are you ready?” Leo calls, coming over to the rink wall, folding his arms upon it with a casual, easy grace born of so many years dancing and performing for the world; and in no small part also from his own demeanour, the one person out of everyone Otabek knows most likely to put a room at ease with nothing but his sparkling eyes and gentle smile.

“I think so,” says Otabek, with a glance back at Yuri, now marking through the landing for what Otabek recognizes as his triple flip-triple loop combination. It would be a quad flip—he’s done that combination in competition before—but it’s also his second-to-last jump sequence for this skate, with another lift and the death spiral to follow. Even Yuri’s strength won’t carry him through that—and besides, as Otabek pointed out to Yuri when he started taking that as a challenge, if Yuri’s exhausted from skating he won’t have as much fun over the rest of their wedding night, and  _ that _ is something both of them intend to enjoy to the fullest.

Otabek skates backwards to the centre of the rink, and even without calling to him, Yuri raises his head and, with a little  _ huh, _ joins him. Their strokes match step for step; it sounds like there is one person skating.

It takes a moment for the two of them to set themselves up in their starting position, and then it is silent for a beat too long. Otabek almost looks over, wonders what’s holding Leo up; but Yuri is already in that trance he gets into sometimes when he’s having a really good competition day, where he’s barely breathing so he can hear the first strains of the music. Otabek closes his eyes for a second, breathes deep through his nose, and rolls back his shoulders.  _ Patience, _ he reminds himself. Everything will happen when it does, and when it’s meant to, and not a moment before; this is the philosophy that’s carried him through life so far, and it hasn’t done him wrong yet.

He never thought he would get to marry Yuri Plisetsky as soon as this, after all.

Piano thrums out over the rink, and Yuri lowers his head to meet Otabek’s eyes. They breathe together: one, two, four times. And then they move.

Otabek knows the way Yuri skates like he knows the way he gets dressed in the morning. There is the way he transfers his weight foot to foot like there’s something chasing him, that even as he skates smooth and graceful there is always something watching, always something clawing at his heels and pushing him towards the sky. There is the way his back arches, sinuous, a flexibility that has never really left him after all these years. There is the look that draws his cheekbones higher as he sinks into the music; it made him look twenty-five when he was fifteen, and at twenty-five, makes him ageless.

Otabek chases him as he launches from the ice for the first time, and knows he will never tire of watching Yuri fly, and never lose the need to chase him to higher and higher heights.

What is a husband if not someone who can challenge you to be ever better forever and ever?

The ice is satin beneath Otabek’s skates, and Yuri is warm and lithe in his arms. He half-closes his eyes, and lets the music sweep him away. If this could go on forever, it would end too soon.

And yet, it does end. The music sways to a close, and Yuri rests his forehead against Otabek’s. They’re both sweaty and sticky and breathing hard, and there’s no other way he would want to finish this.

“We  _ killed it _ out there,” says Yuri, a grin in his breathless voice, and Otabek smiles low and proud as he breaks the hold.

“I know we did. It’ll be even better on Saturday.”

“Well,  _ duh,” _ says Yuri, and Otabek laughs as the two of them make their way back to the rink wall, and Leo, who looks so  _ fond _ that Yuri’s face morphs from elation to terror in barely half a second.

“What did you think, Leo?” asks Otabek, trying to quell down his laughter as Yuri goes through the seven stages of fury in his own time at the mortifying ordeal of being looked upon fondly.

“Oh man,” says Leo, smile spreading even wider. “Oh  _ man.” _

“You liked it?”

“Dude, I choreographed it,” says Leo like this is explanation enough, which Otabek supposes it is. “You two…”

“I hope we did it justice.”

“Beka… Yuri.” Yuri looks up that, and his face creases to concern.

“You did like it, right?” says Yuri, and he sounds—almost scared.

“I really did. You two—I can see how much you’re meant to be together when you’re out there. You skate together like… like you’re one person skating. It’s beautiful, guys. You know…” Leo pauses, and looks down, and Otabek swallows back the burning in his cheeks, behind his eyes, and doesn’t realise he’s reached out his hand until Yuri takes it and draws himself in closer.

“You know, I wrote this thing down, right after you asked me to do this, Beka. I was thinking about how I wanted it to look for you two, and this is something I’ve seen in music—an idea on how to play it, you know? I figured a note on how you could skate it wasn’t a bad idea.”

Leo pulls up his phone and shows them both a photo of a sheet covered in tiny sketches and neat handwriting, and at the top is a note in swirled cursive:

_ Con amore _

“With love,” says Leo, and his hand is warm as he reaches out to squeeze Otabek’s shoulder. “That’s what I was thinking of, the whole while I was putting this together, and I don’t think I ever told you… but I can see it, plain as day. Everyone else is gonna see it too.”

Yuri laughs; a short, breathless thing that sounds like he might be holding back tears. Otabek squeezes his hand a little tighter.

_ With love _ is one way of putting the way he felt out there, the sensation that comes over him every time he’s taken to the ice since he was very young. But there’s another way Otabek can name this feeling, which is so much simpler:

_ With Yuri. _

And Otabek wouldn’t have it any other way.

**Author's Note:**

> The mood music I used here was the [Natalie Taylor cover of Latch](https://open.spotify.com/track/2w8C5MDcyUkUvbpQsfuGoN?si=dVM7x4dVSkSceZLnTOxjHA), but really, envision whatever first dance music you headcanon for OtaYuri in here ♫
> 
> Thank you for reading! Kudos and comments always appreciated ♥
> 
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/museicalitea)


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